The title for this blog originated with use of the term “practical idealist”
in this 1996 opinion piece, which asked: “To what kind of work should a practical idealist aspire?” A century and a half earlier, Emerson,
in his 1841 essay Circles, wrote: “There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it academically.
. . . Then we see in the heyday of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and fragments.
Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see that it must be true. It now shows itself ethical and practical.” John
Dewey and Mahatma Gandhi embraced practical idealism in the 20th century, as did UN Secretary General U Thant. Al Gore
invoked it in a 1998 speech. In the context of this blog, the term is meant to convey idealism tempered but not overwhelmed
by realism: a search for the ideal on a path guided by common sense.

Having
tonight watched a troubling Frontline episode – about the "terrorism-industrial complex," suspect aircraft maintenance, and Afghanistan –
I am escaping to recall the frivolous drama of sport.

Yesterday, I was at the University of Connecticut for the men's basketball team's last-seconds
victory over highly ranked Villanova. This blog has included previous posts about basketball: January 26, 2009 ("Basketball, Politics, and Purpose") and January 24, 2010 ("Basketball and 'Irrational Exuberance'" – days after which
the New Yorker happened to publish Carlo Rotella’s observations "On the Basketball Court with Arne Duncan"), as well as June 5, 2010("John Wooden, Sport, and Society").

There
is an irrationality to my more than three decades-long attachment to UConn basketball. (This personal Huskymania
began just a few years after my initiation to UConn as a preschooler in its child labs in the early 1970s – one of several
disparate affiliations with the university that briefly included a part-time job as an academic tutor for one
of the mainstays on Geno Auriemma's first final four team.) Yet sometimes the fanaticism of a fan is fulfilled. I don't watch the Oscars or even the Super
Bowl (unless the Patriots are playing); the UConn Huskies provide my winter recreation, occasionally stirringly so.

Such
recreation obviously cannot compare to the gravity and moral power of something like the March on Washington, which the nation remembered yesterday on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday (and to which my January 15 post below refers).Yet some cultural observers
cite parallels between luminous religious experience and the dimmer passion of athletic competition and fandom.

Wesleyan
University's president, Michael Roth, in a New York Timesbook review of the Dreyfus and Kelly book, maintains
its authors “awkwardly depart from their poems, novels and plays to cite feelings of oneness in a crowd watching Roger Federer play tennis! Can privileged, happy spectators really stand as an antidote for the
general affliction of modernity? Is ‘whooshing’ along with a crowd the philosophers’ cure for nihilism or
just its expression? …. Despite its shortcomings, All Things Shining repays attention and reflection. It is
a fascinating read and deserves an audience far beyond the borders of academia. Even if you don’t agree that we are
caught in an age of nihilistic indecision, if you attune yourself to the authors’ energetic intelligence and deep engagement
with key texts in the West, you will have much to be grateful for.”

While the fan fervor was less sustained and intense
than at last year's Texas game (when the Longhorns entered with the nation’s top ranking and the desperate Huskies played superbly in the second half),
yesterday’s still considerable excitement was fueled by the brilliance of UConn’s Kemba Walker, who earlier this
month helped defeat Texas for a second straight year.Playing only
so-so by his high standards most of yesterday, Kemba Walker redeemed himself by creating and sinking the
winning hoop with remarkable poise.As he did so and Villanova’s counter fell short, the UConn faithful
erupted yesterday with a frenzy that rivaled the ecstatic conclusion to the Texas game I wrote about on January 24, 2010.

On
this day when Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 82 years old, I attempted for the first time – with only mixed
success – to introduce him and his significance to my five-year-old daughter.From the New Haven
Public Library, my wife obtained I've Seen the Promised Land: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by Walter Dean
Myers, illustrated by Leonard Jenkins; and a book on King – illustrated with photographs – that is part of a (Rourke)
series on “Equal Rights Leaders” that also includes Susan B. Anthony, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson,
and Eleanor Roosevelt.

My
daughter was most interested to learn that her Grandpa (my father, who was a volunteer for the Congress of Racial Equality
in Boston in the early 1960s) was among the crowd of thousands at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.Together, we found grainy footage on Youtube of that vast crowd and listened to a portion of King’s “I
Have a Dream” speech.Next year on his birthday, I’ll try again to draw some lessons for her
from the MLK story.She will increasingly learn about the Civil Rights movement in her New Haven public
school (and from the historical
storytelling of at least one Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Fellow at another school who has developed related curricular
resources). Perhaps eventually
my daughter will be able to help inform her little brother of a few strands of history, while inspiring him to learn more.

Dillon
writes, “Researching a history paper, [Fitzhugh] said, is not just about accumulating facts, but about developing a
sense of historical context, synthesizing findings into new ideas, and wrestling with how to communicate them clearly...”